After finishing his Ph.D. and M.D. degrees Schmarda
worked for several years as an army surgeon and teacher in Vienna and
Graz; he then secured more permanent positions in the latter city, moving
on to Prague in 1852. From 1853 to 1857 Schmarda was occupied with an
around-the-world voyage, investigating locations largely in the Southern
Hemisphere. Several important publications (especially on marine worms)
followed, and in 1862 he secured the coveted chair in zoology at the University
of Vienna, where he remained thereafter. Schmarda's Die Geographische
Verbreitung der Thiere, published the year he left on his great voyage,
is an interesting pre-Darwinian accounting of the distribution of animals
divided into three sections: one on general principles, and one each on
terrestrial and marine environments.

Life Chronology

--born in Olmütz, Moravia (now Olomouc, Czech
Republic), on 23 August 1819.
--early academic studies in Olmütz and Vienna
--1841: Ph.D.
--1843: M.D.
--1848: made acting head of the faculty of agriculture at the Joanneum,
Graz
--1848-1849: made acting head of the faculty of anthropology at the Joanneum,
Graz
--1849-1850: made acting head of the faculty of zoology at the Joanneum,
Graz
--1850: made professor of natural history at the University of Graz
--1852: named professor of zoology and director of the zoological collection,
University of Prague
--1853: publishes his Die
Geographische Verbreitung der Thiere, in three volumes
--1853-1857: travels around the world
--1861: publishes his Reise um die Erde in den Jahren 1853-1857,
in two volumes
--1862-1883: chair of zoology, University of Vienna
--1883: made court councillor of the Academy of Sciences, Vienna
--dies at Vienna, Austria, on 7 April 1908.